Robotics: Learning Through Teaching

Grades 9-12 / Science / Engineering

CCSS:
ELA.SL.9-10.4
ELA.SL.11-12.4

Common Core State Standards

ELA

English Language Arts

SL

Speaking and Listening Standards 6-12

9-10

9th & 10th Grades

4

Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely,
and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the
organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose,
audience, and task.

Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear
and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning,
alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization,
development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a
range of formal and informal tasks.

[00:00]
Interviewer: I know as a teacher that when I’m teaching something to my students, I’ve really learned it well. I can learn new things, but I’m best at it when I have to teach someone else. I want my students to have that opportunity too. Part of today was about them teaching what they have learned to a younger group of kids to mentor that younger group.
One of the objectives today was to have every student speak about something they’re familiar with.
We have Mrs. Bashoff 00:44 bringing her fifth graders over today for our final presentation and interaction for the year.
First on the agenda, reviewing all of the skills they’ve practiced throughout the year about how to communicate to an audience, and making sure we understand all those key little pieces.
You’re trying to demonstrate your depth of knowledge as you do this without overwhelming our audience.
The next thing that we need to take care of is what are the concepts? What’s the content that’s gonna be delivered?
Let’s start with safety.
Interviewee: Just safety inside the home like electricity wise. Just make sure you know what the dangers are, and what not to do around it. And if something happens, what you should do about it.
Interviewer: CAD Animation Group.
Interviewee: Basically telling all the fun things you can do with CAD, and how it can be used in the real world.
Interviewer: Okay. We’ll transition into the other room, so what are the key points the robot group plans to make?
Interviewee: We’re gonna be talking about the competition, and kind of the stuff we do this year, and the goals of this year’s game. And also what we did with our robot to try to accomplish those goals.
Interviewer: When I start the school year with this particular class I let them know up front, you’re gonna be expected to speak to people.
Now we need to set the stage. We need to make sure that the resources are there, the technology’s gonna work.
Interviewee: One thing we could probably say during that part of the presentation would be like let’s say you have remodeled the house you want built, but before they actually build it they make a 3D model of it.
Interviewee: Before we start the demo, you’re gonna go from robot to safety, and then that’s kinda—we’re just gonna—everybody do a little bit.
Interviewee: Yeah, ‘cuz we have to talk about the proper lifting technique and all that good stuff.
Interviewer: Where do you want to be while the safety group is doing their presentation?
Interviewee: I think we should go into the other room, so that we’re out of the way.
Interviewer: Okay, and then what are you guys gonna do while they’re on, move to the back or go to the other room?
Interviewee: Go to the other room.
Interviewer: Okay, so then you can go ahead and get your goggles and be ready with that, all right, smiles. Everybody ready? Welcome, welcome, good to see you back again. What’s the face paint for?
Interviewee: Spirit day.
Interviewer: Spirit day, are we spirited, all right.
Interviewee: Good afternoon Miss Madison.
Interviewer: Good afternoon. We’re so excited to have you guys today. The high school students have put together several presentations to show you more about what we do here at Memorial in the engineering academy, and with the robotics team.
My job, introduce what’s going on, give them an overview, and then step off the stage.
Are you guys ready for that?
Interviewee: Yeah.
Interviewer: All right.
Interviewee: All right, so today we’re gonna teach you about safety concerning electricity.
Interviewer: Now there are times you have to still step in and facilitate, especially when you have fifth graders who are all excited. You need to let them own it, and experience it.
Interviewee: Do you guys know what electricity is?
Interviewee: Where you can plug something in, and it’s electric.
Interviewee: All right, that’s pretty good. Electricity is the energy that goes through your wires right? Like you know the power chord that you plug things into the wall like he was talking about, it’s what goes through that power chord, all right?
Interviewer: In looking at the language skills that we want the students to have, we want the students, when they’re speaking to be able to use gestures, to use eye contact, getting rid of the nervous habits is a big piece of what we do throughout the year.
Interviewee: Since your body is 65 percent of water, you need to be really careful whenever you’re around electricity.
Interviewer: By having a group of students having to speak, they not only have to know their part and deliver it, they need to be able to share the stage with their neighbor.
Interviewee: The opposite of a conductor is an insulator. Can anyone guess what an insulator does? Anybody, please?
Interviewer: What does an insulator do?
Interviewee: Remember, he just said it’s the opposite of a conductor, so.
Interviewee: It stops electricity.
Interviewee: Mm-hmm, very good.
[05:00]
Interviewer: For the most part it was smooth, but there were some issues with some of the transitions between the students.
Interviewee: Make sure you don’t have any chords that are going underneath a rug or something because it can heat up, and it could start a fire.
Interviewee: Today we actually have an activity for you where you and your groups are gonna test different materials. You’re gonna find out which one is the best conductor out of all of the materials. There’s gonna be a high schooler with each of your groups, so if you need any help just make sure to ask.
Interviewee: Now what do you thinks gonna happen with the circuit?
Interviewee: Ooh, it’s gonna light up.
Interviewee: That’s right, good job man. So do you think electricity’s gonna go through that?
Interviewee: No.
Interviewee: Okay, so write down what you thinks gonna happen. Set ‘em back on the belt. See how there’s nothing going, it’s stopping.
Interviewee: Why did you think the penny would light up?
Interviewee: I think the material’s made [inaudible 06:00] electricity pass through.
Interviewee: What is it? It’s a conductor?
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewee: And so, was it the best conductor then?
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: Kids come into this program with the idea, “I don’t want to speak in front of groups, it makes me so nervous. But you know what, I want to learn. I want to do better.” For me, it’s a four year process. But for a teacher, a full year process, you start small and you build those skills a little each day. And pretty soon they’re getting comfortable. They’re like, “I can do this.”
Interviewee: This is our animation team. My job mainly is to model everything, transform from simple things to very complex.
Interviewee: When they did sketches like that, it would take a few years for them to build that. Now with advances in the technology, it takes less time, and have a lot more people happy because it’s not taking so long.
Interviewer: So if we’re gonna see one we need to see it now ‘cuz we’re running out of time.
Interviewee: Here we have a video of the FRC animation of the game we do for robotics.
Interviewer: FRC is First Robotics Competition, and this is what we did this year in our competition.
Interviewee: At this years’ game, rebound rumble. Alliances of three teams each operate their robots from behind alliance walls at the ends of the court.
Interviewer: What I’m gonna ask you guys to do is push your chairs in, and we’re gonna go through this door over here. We’re gonna start as soon as they get seated.
Interviewer: Our third group designed the robot, built it, programmed it, tested it. But when we test things not everything goes as planned. They have to think on their feet, and try to fix that in a very timely manner.
Interviewee: This is our robot this year. We have some nice little belts in the front to bring balls up from the ground.
Interviewer: When you’re in front of an audience, same thing. It’s very embarrassing if it doesn’t go as planned, so can you figure it out and still have the results that you want.
Interviewee: This pushes the balls into our shooter exactly the same way every time. That way we’re gonna get a very sure shot at the same shot every time, hopefully. Right now Brad and Sam, our lovely drivers, are going to show you a demo of our robot.
Interviewee: All right, so first that starts.
Interviewer: There’s one ball already in the piston, and the other ones feeding up into it. We can’t do that. So now they’re trying to see when they lift it by hand if it’s gonna align. We’ll try again, okay. Okay, and the piston goes up.
Interviewee: And it’s still hitting that, all right. It’s embarrassing.
Interviewer: What’s the issue, explain it.
Interviewee: We found out was that this shelf that supports the piston had actually fallen down.
Interviewer: Lesson learned should be what; when you’re gonna do a demo?
Interviewee: Always check.
Interviewer: Always check it; always check your technology in advance. We’ll try again. There we go. I don’t know why you’re clapping; they’re supposed to be going in the hoop. Maybe we need to put one of you on there, one of you want to try it?
Interviewee: Yeah.
Interviewee: See the robot right there, you’re gonna want to hold that until it gets into [inaudible 09:42] Now you’re good. Here, you’re gonna press that, and you’re gonna hold it down.
Interviewer: Thank you guys, hope you had fun, you had fun, all right.
[10:00]
Interviewer: Once we’ve ushered the McClure students out the door, I want to come back together, and truly reflect on what they achieved today. What went well? It’s also important to reflect on what you can improve upon.
Let’s talk about safety, what was good about it? What’d we do great?
Interviewee: The experiment went really well. They were all really interested in it. The girls in my group, some of them like took off their bracelets to see if it would still work and stuff, and headbands to see if they would be insulators or conductors. They were interested in it a lot.
Interviewer: Awesome. What would you improve on the safety?
Interviewee: We had a couple of groups that they just, they kinda wanted to talk beforehand, and kind of went over instead of getting right into the experiment. Because whenever we have three different things, we need to have the times set down pretty concrete.
Interviewer: And on the video group, I know we rushed you guys quite a bit. What’s your feedback?
Interviewee: Our presentation could have gone better, and we could have better organized it. But I think for the most part we covered most of the subjects.
Interviewer: My one feedback is you guys are very technical with what you do. There were a lot of terms in there that maybe we could have broken down, especially if we’d had more time. Your voices were very quiet. You want to think about projecting a little bit, so that everybody can you hear a bit more. Okay, robot, the good?
Interviewee: The kids seemed to enjoy scoring with the robot.
Interviewee: A couple of the kids on my team said they wanted to join robotics, so that was cool.
Interviewer: Awesome, awesome, so we’re generating interest. What could we have improved?
Interviewee: Could have double checked everything on our checklist.
Interviewer: Treated it like an actual match?
Interviewee: We weren’t really rehearsed on the topics that we were going over, so we didn’t have our transitions ready.
Interviewer: I will say though, the parts you were speaking were done well.
In any class students need to be able to articulate their ideas. Can you then take that to another group of kids, and carry that down? Yes.
[End of Audio]

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